Deep Impact has been buried. Godzilla's size didn't matter as much as TriStar hoped it would. Six Days, Seven Nights took about that long to
come and go. Now it's time for Bruce Willis to kick asteroid. Recalling the amazing box-office
assault of 1996's Independence Day, which was also
released over the July 4 weekend, Touchstone Pictures is understandably optimistic about the
performance of their big summer gun, the latest from Midas producer Jerry Bruckheimer (Crimson Tide, Con
Air). And why not? Since almost everything else released this season withered up in the
June heat, the field is clear.

Armageddon is a testosterone and adrenaline cocktail, with almost no intelligence added
for flavoring. It's the latest in a line of increasingly-stupid action pictures that amazes audiences
with flashy special effects and nifty action sequences, but leaves them high and dry in both the
character and story departments. Armageddon is like a video game crossed with an
amusement park thrill ride, and, to a certain extent, it can be enjoyed on those terms. It's certainly
better than Godzilla, not because it's any less preposterous, but because it is occasionally
exciting -- a quality that could not be ascribed to any moment of the big lizard's tedious romp
through New York.

Speaking of the Big Apple, it is destroyed yet again. This time it's not the only city to be blasted
off the face of the Earth -- Paris gets the same treatment. Neither instance of urban renewal is
necessary to the storyline, but, because Armageddon is a disaster movie, there has be
some sort of tangible, big-scale disaster, and leveling a few cities qualifies. After all, the other
space-object-headed-for-the-planet movie, Deep Impact, eradicated New York. Could
Armageddon do any less? Actually, after all the problems the city has experienced on the
big screen this summer, with incoming tidal waves, exploding space debris, and nasty monsters on
the prowl, it wouldn't surprise me if the tourist business was down.

The meteor shower that punches a hole in the World Trade Center and rips apart the Empire State
Building is only a precursor to the approach of a "global killer" asteroid ("nothing will survive, not
even bacteria") -- a piece of space debris the size of Texas that, when discovered, it only 18 days
away. Dan Truman (Billy Bob Thornton), a NASA chief, is given the task of finding a way to
save the planet. His solution: send a bunch of oil drillers into space in two shuttles and have them
land on the asteroid. Once there, they can drill 800 feet beneath the surface, dump a nuclear
warhead down the shaft, then evacuate before the blast fragments the big rock, sending the pieces
flying off harmlessly into space. The man chosen to lead the expedition is the world's best driller,
Harry Stamper (Willis). He has his team with him (they all look significantly different, so we can
tell them apart): the young hotshot, A. J. (rising star Ben Affleck); the gambling addict, Chick
(Will Patton); the sex-obsessed weirdo, Rockhound (Steve Buscemi); the baritone Bear (Michael
Duncan); the big-as-a-mountain Max (Ken Hudson Campbell); and a few others not worth
mentioning because they die quickly. Also along for the ride are a couple of NASA pilots (played
by William Fichtner and Jessica Steen) and a slightly nutty Russian cosmonaut (Peter Stormare).
Meanwhile, back at Mission Control, there's a general (Keith David) who's ready to prematurely
explode the nuke at the first sign of trouble. Grace Stamper (Liv Tyler), Harry's daughter and
A.J.'s fiancÚ, is also there, making sad faces and whimpering whenever it looks like her father or
her boyfriend is about to buy the proverbial farm.

While there are a lot of things to complain about concerning Deep Impact, the science in
that film isn't as laughably absurd as it is in Armageddon. No matter. As an old saying
states: "Never let the facts get in the way of a good story." The problem is, it's not a good story.
Visceral appeal, which Armageddon undeniably has, can only go so far. However,
although this film is no more intelligent than Deep Impact, it is slightly more enjoyable,
primarily because it's more entertaining to watch space shuttles flee from exploding space stations
and dodge cosmic debris than to endure Tea Leoni bonding with Vanessa Redgrave or Maximilian
Schell.

At 150 minutes in length, Armageddon is painfully padded. Why do all effects-driven
would-be blockbusters have to last more than 90 minutes? The first hour, which establishes the
"characters," is dull. We really don't need to see 30 minutes of astronaut training. I think some of
this material is intended as comic relief, but it comes across as silly, not funny. In fact, I can only
remember two jokes that actually work: a none-too-subtle jab at Godzilla and an equally
obvious reference to Dr. Strangelove.

As he has proven in the past (In Country, Pulp Fiction), Bruce Willis can act. He's not doing any of that here, however. As Harry Stamper, all he's required to do is look cocky, make a couple of wise cracks, and act courageous. I
could say that Willis brings a certain degree of easygoing likability to the character, but that would
be overanalyzing. On the other hand, "likable" isn't a word to use for Ben Affleck's A.J., who's a
real jerk. I'm not sure what Affleck is trying to do with this performance, but he didn't get me in
his character's corner. Meanwhile, Billy Bob Thornton is forgettable as the NASA honcho
(compare his work here to Ed Harris' superior portrayal of the same sort of individual in Apollo 13), Liv Tyler is on hand exclusively to look pretty (a requirement that doesn't tax her limited acting ability), and Steve Buscemi (re-united with Fargo co-star Peter Stormare) plays the kind of wacko that he does so well.

Director Michael Bay (The Rock) pulls out all the stops when it comes to audience manipulation. The President of the United States gives an incredibly
over-the-top speech (as in Independence Day), there are long, lingering, slow motion shots
of Harry's team approaching the space craft (as in The Right Stuff), and there's a
sequence near the end that might have been touching if it wasn't so overdone. Bay clearly wants
his audience to cheer and cry (presumably not at the same time). I didn't feel compelled to do
either.

Armageddon fills a certain need that summer movie-goers have. The visual effects are
suitably impressive, the heroes are all bigger-than-life, and the pyrotechnics are theater-shaking. In
the genre of mindless action/adventure/disaster flicks, this is an adequate entry.
Armageddon will likely go down as a box-office success because, unlike so many other of
1998's summer contenders, this one at least delivers what audiences are expecting -- even if that's a
sadly-limited order.